


Twisted || RusAme

by themintmochi (raspberryjun)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Backstory, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plot, Romantic Angst, RusAme, Yaoi, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberryjun/pseuds/themintmochi
Summary: Hetalia in a high school alternative universe, where they aren't nations. RusAme pairing.Alfred was a lonely kid for most of his childhood, but he had become accustomed to this constant lifestyle of living with his caretaker rather than his actual dad, who was often caught up with business trips across the globe. But he was fine with it. He always admired him either way, and he still was happy.That is, until his father, his only living parent, experiences a terrible accident that leaves him orphaned and lost at nine years old.He later is adopted by the Kirkland household, who gives him the home that he had always wanted, and lives seven years comfortably there even despite the inner conflict still stirring within him.However, there are fragmented pieces of his past still coming back to haunt him, and as he uncovers them in his junior year in high school, he realizes that he had forgotten someone extremely important to him.Not to mention that everything around him is suddenly beginning to fray at the seams...





	1. Sixth Sense

**Author's Note:**

> "Y'know what? Everyone was right about you after all. You're twisted."

**Prologue || Sixth Sense**

_...seven years earlier._

The train slowly crept towards the dying sunset burning in the horizon. Alfred watched the fading rays of sunshine slowly leave his palms, isolating him in the darkness of night along with the departing train. He held his posture as firmly as possible, staring ahead squarely without letting his gaze linger on any one place for too long. He wanted to give off the impression of someone who knew what he was doing. Of someone who was independent enough to stand on his own and make some sort of difference in the world. Yes – he needed to be strong.

Inwardly, however, he felt a sense of terror grip him, and his pulse played out to him like an unceasing drum. He knew that he truly wasn’t ready to be left alone, and beads of sweat began to form at the sides of his head. He felt nausea take hold of him, and he suddenly plummeted on the train’s bench, feeling the world swirl around him in a blur of people talking around him, trains whisking by, and the fading sunlight of dusk.

 _I’m not ready._ Once he finally admitted that one line to himself in his mind, he felt his fear heighten exponentially. He held onto the last bit of self-control that he possessed, managing to suppress himself from leaping onto that running train to find his father. He had never craved for anything more than another embrace from his dad, and his blue eyes now began to water with tears.

It wasn’t the fact that his father was going on a business trip that offset Alfred – he had gone on many of them before, and this was not a new occurrence. No – there was something strangely _different_ about the situation that had struck a chord in him, as he helplessly stared as the last carts of the train receded in the distance. Apprehensive thoughts filled his mind with a sense of dread.

They say that young kids have a sixth sense of some sort when it comes to danger. They just know things sometimes, quite terrifyingly.

Well, it was the case with this incident, too.

As nine-year old Alfred cried on the train platform bench next to the hired caretaker, devastated at his father for leaving the country, he had the strange, ominous prophecy etched into his brain that his father wouldn’t be coming back from his business trip. It was irrational-sounding, however, and he kept the thoughts to himself, gripping the caretaker’s skirt like a security blanket. He told himself that he was wrong, and that his father was going to be alright. Yes, he _had_ to be overreacting – he had returned every single time, hadn’t he?

But Alfred wouldn’t be prepared for what would happen.

Just hours after Alfred’s father had left for the business trip, when the caretaker had brought Alfred back home, he continued to feel a lump residing in his throat, and his heart continued to race. The caretaker noticed his behavior, and she scooped him up in her arms and brought him in her lap.

“He will be back in a week, my darling,” she said in a honey-coated accent that came off soft and breath-like. As she said those words, she brought a hand forward and tentatively brushed the hand through Alfred’s hair as a way of expressing affection. However, Alfred refused this blatantly, stopping her hand with his own small one after a few strokes, his eyes still distant.

“What’s bothering you, Al? You usually are fine with being on your own—“

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said in a hesitant, high-pitched voice, curling up into a ball on the couch.

After a while of the caretaker trying to comfort Alfred and make him loosen up a little, which he seemed to have an iron-resistance towards, she gave up and decided to turn on the television in hopes of highering his spirits.

The television crackled at first, and momentarily displayed colored bars for a few seconds, until the news channel came to life on the screen. The caretaker was about to change the channel to one of Alfred’s favorites, until she saw the news headline: a fatal train crash at West Burrow Railways.

West Burrow Railways was same station that Alfred and the caretaker had waited at only hours before. The same one where Alfred’s father had departed. She froze, and continued to read the headlines.

It was speculated that approximately 50 people had died, and they were still undergoing investigation of the cause. Whatever the error was – it was most likely carelessness on the conductor’s part, a news reporter suggests – two trains had completely collided head-on with one another and had left terrible wreckage behind. The image displayed on the screen was jarring, with metal shards scattered about the distorted mess of where the two trains had met, their features indiscernible. The wreck made the two vehicles appear to merge as one big mess.

Before she could even process the news that was being relayed on the screen, Alfred suddenly broke into a shriek as he lifted a single finger towards the train wreck shown on the screen.

 “It says… train 3F. It’s 3F. Papa’s there. Papa—“ Alfred felt his voice burn out like a candle, flickering at first with passion before suddenly being snuffed out by coldness gripping him. He felt like his lungs were being constricted, and only when the feeling subsided did he speak again, still feebly: “Is he… is he okay?”

The caretaker froze in place, immediately putting an immense amount of blame on herself for letting him see the news story, before turning towards him with a sympathetic face. She hugged the nine-year-old child who was now bawling his eyes out, pounding his small fists on her back and yelling out his father’s name over and over again. He ached for true warmth, and when Alfred saw only pity in the caretaker’s eyes instead of what he was looking for, he pulled away from her and ran into his room.

She watched him go with widened eyes, and immediately ran to his door, knowing that they had no time to spare now that they knew about the train wreck. They needed to be at the hospital where his father would be admitted as _soon_ as possible.

 “Alfred, I know you’re sad about this, but we actually don’t know anything yet,” the caretaker called from outside of his room frantically, although her tone-of-voice sounded defeated. She struggled to come up with the right words to get him out of the room. “Perhaps he survived the crash – there were much more than 50 people on that train.”

“I… I guess he might’ve survived then—“

“We have no more time to waste,” the caretaker suddenly remarked in a solemn tone, stepping into Alfred’s room and lightly taking his small wrist. “We need to see your Papa right away.”

At those words, Alfred reacted almost immediately, practically tumbling across the steps and jamming his shoes on, bursting out of the front door and into the night air many seconds before the caretaker could catch up to him. When she finally passed the threshold of the door, he was already at the car, his eyes desperate as he clung onto the car door handle.

They drove in complete silence, with the sounds of the tires against the road almost playing out as rhythmically as tickers on a clock. The sound seemed to warn them ominously that time was running out, and Alfred shivered, digging his nails into the leather backseat of the car.

They arrived at a train station almost an hour earlier than they normally would take, due to the caretaker blasting through many red lights and ignoring countless traffic signals. They had no time at all.

When they arrived at the parking lot near the station, Alfred’s eyes widened as he saw yellow tape ahead where the train tracks were, and tears entered his eyes once more as he recalled the image of the train wreck he had seen on the television. However, he wiped them just as quickly.

_I am strong. Papa wanted me to be strong, so I won’t cry._

He continued to repeat this oath in his brain as he and the caretaker ran up to the train platform, where an officer turned to them with a surprised look on his face.

“What are you doing here, ma’am?” he asked of her, his brown eyes burning with the common hostility of any government official. “All train rides have been delayed or cancelled until further notic—“

“Where’s Papa?” Alfred abruptly cried out, his fists clenched as he walked up to the officer. “H-he was on that train… t-the one that crashed and–“ He broke into tears once more, while cursing himself in his brain for breaking the oath that he had made for himself.

The officer’s eyes immediately softened and he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, kneeling down so he could look at him at eye-level. He seemed to be lost for words at what to say – he knew that he couldn’t guarantee to the little boy that his father was alright. However, he squeezed his hand and gave him a small embrace.

“I know it can be hard, little guy, but remember that he’s always gonna be with you, even if something did happen to him,” he said in a soothing tone. “Happened to my mother too. Passed away in an automobile accident.”

He felt lost. “O-oh. I’m sorry about that mister.”

He laughed softly. “Aw, c’mon, no time to be sorry right now. I just wanna say that regardless of what happens today, promise me that you’ll walk back home with a smile on your face, although I really hope your Papa’ll be okay. You’re gonna come back from this incident strong.”

_Strong. The same word that Papa always uses._

_Does that really describe me? Am I strong?_

“I—okay, I’ll be sure to do that m-mister.” Alfred gave him a grateful look, and the officer just cracked a smile and ruffled his hair before turning back to the caretaker.

“Ya gotta be quick, miss,” the official stated, his eyes immediately becoming solemn and stern again. “All passengers of 3F and 9F were admitted at Ashbury Hospital. Ten minutes from here. Keep going down the highway and you’ll see the sign.”

“Thank you.”

And with that small conversation concluding, the caretaker scooped Alfred up in her arms once more, hobbling towards the car and putting the key in the ignition with a jerk. She turned it with such intensity that Alfred swore that she would shatter the key in two. They made the ten minute trip early once more thanks to the franticness of her driving, and they immediately pushed through the double doors of the white building sitting next to the old parking lot.

As soon as Alfred entered the inside of the hospital, he could hear the area come to life at once. He heard the soft wailing of children, the smell of medicine and antiseptic filling the halls, weary-looking people on the benches, some with tear-stained eyes – the reality of a place that held the fates of many people’s lives.

After a hasty check-in at the front of the hospital, Alfred ran ahead of the caretaker as soon as he glimpsed at the room number, and began to sprint across the slippery halls in search of his father. He ignored the calls from the doctors and nurses who told him to slow down, and narrowly missed bumping into multiple carts and beds being wheeled in and out of rooms constantly.

He reached the room number he was looking for at last: 298. Upon seeing the printed letters above the rim of the door, Alfred took in a shaky breath before proceeding towards the door. As his fingers brushed the surface of the knob slightly, his eyes widened when a small _click_ was heard from the opposite side of the door. Backing away slightly, he saw the door open, and a woman in doctor’s attire came out, her black hair loose over her shoulders with one curl dangling over her green eyes. She caught Alfred’s gaze.

“What are you doing here all alone—“ she began, only to stop when she saw the caretaker approach him, heavily breathing.

“We’re… we’re here to see Avery Jones.”

The doctor’s eyes retreated to the side, refusing to meet either of their gazes as her knuckles turned white against the clipboard she was holding. She pressed her lips together, at first thinking about what to say.

“You can’t come in right now.”

Alfred looked up at the doctor dejectedly, feeling desperation overtake him as he longingly stared at the door. He began to regret not hugging his father for longer when he first departed from the train station. All he could do was pray that his father would be okay, and yet all he could do was wait outside a hospital room in anticipation.

“Please, at least tell us how he is. His son has been crying for half the night already,” the caretaker said in a lower voice, staring sympathetically at the blue-eyed boy beside her.

The doctor’s green eyes, which had at first seemed to reflect the color of fresh spring leaves themselves, visibly darkened as her expression changed to one of clear despair. Her fingers began to fidget, and she began clicking a mechanical pencil with one of her hands.

“To say the least, he’s in a terrible condition right now,” she began to say, and then glanced at Alfred, who was staring at her curiously. Feeling terrible that a child would have to experience this conversation, she went on with clear regret in her voice: “I think Avery Jones might…”

“Might what?” the caretaker demanded.

“He might not make it.”

Alfred felt his heart racing in his chest as his eyes attached themselves to the clean marble floor of the hospital, shaking off the hand that the caretaker outstretched towards him by instinct. He felt his breathing quicken, his hands shaking with tremors and his heart tearing apart. He didn’t understand how much could be snatched away from him in one day by one goddamn machine. Just one mistake had taken his everything away.

“W-why?” Alfred managed to choke out between a silent sob, his breathing audibly coming out in a choppy manner.

The doctor’s eyes looked sad, and she almost looked like she was going to say something to the boy, but a voice from the room that she had come out of made her turn around reluctantly and retreat back to the operation going underway.

A few sickening hours passed by. Alfred had visible dark lines prominent under his eyes, and he squarely refused every request from the caretaker to go home and rest.

At last, the doctor came back out of the room, and walked back to the two of them sitting on the bench. She looked incredibly sorry. “We couldn’t save him. We really did our best.”

At this point, Alfred was already so weary from waiting for practically the entirety of the night that he at first had no response at all. He had looked like he had given up already, and only a single tear fell down his face this time as he emotionlessly stared seemingly straight-through the doctor. The caretaker pressed her head against his shoulder and wiped the tear off his cheek tentatively. “It’ll be okay… it’ll all be okay…”

The doctor looked aimlessly about, feeling like she was intruding their private conversation. She said a bit too quickly, “You can come in the room if you’d like,” before walking off into the halls with her head ducked down, the click of her shoes echoing across the corridor.

Alfred inched his way through the door, with the caretaker standing outside to give him space while still supervising the child. He choked inside at the sight of his father’s body under the white sheets. He began to grow paranoid just seeing the white walls, white door, white - _everything_ white in the hospital, feeling like the entire location was only there to hold the funerals of loved ones, of those who mattered the most to him. When he couldn’t bear kneeling at his father’s side any longer, he ran out of the room and, tears staining his vision, he blindly fumbled for the caretaker and hugged her with all the strength he could muster.

And there they sat until the crack of dawn came once more, a blood red that rose from the windows and seemed itself to mourn the death of his father. He sobbed and sobbed until his eyes became far too dry to let out any more moisture, and his head was clouded with the sudden rush of events that had all happened far too fast for his liking.

He still couldn’t grip onto that ominous fact that he still refused to say out loud. He didn’t want to believe that the last living member of his family was gone. He feared for what would happen next. Feared for what he would do now that he was completely alone. Would he have a new family? Would it ever be the same?

After staying there for half of the next day as well, Alfred finally passed out from exhaustion on the bench. The caretaker picked him up, and feeling far too tired to drive, they took a taxi home.

The funeral proceedings came by two weeks later. They attempted to send out invitations to people that his father may have known, but with the lack of relatives there besides Alfred himself, it turned out to be a dry one with only a select ten people showing up.

The caretaker later quit her job. Apparently, she had severe PTSD from the incident, along with other already-present conditions. Although she regretted leaving Alfred alone, she herself could not physically nor mentally take care of him anymore, and had to distance herself from the entire location of the train wreck situation. Alfred had begged her to stay, but she simply said that she was not capable of taking care of him, before leaving with her suitcase without another glance backwards.

He was the last remaining Jones, without a single person of his past being there for him.

At the end of the day, Alfred could only rely on those two words that everyone had kept on telling him that day: _be strong_.

Even if he wasn’t strong. Even if he was crumbling at the seams despite trying his hardest to be that strong hero that everyone seemed to want of him.

Be strong.


	2. The Kirkland Household

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers that I regarded as nothing but close friends.
> 
> The mother that I regarded as nothing but an amazing person.
> 
> Yes, even after I was given everything in this new home of mine, I was still lost.
> 
> 🌺

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note -- there are many characters introduced in chapter 1, including one with a custom name I gave to them myself, so here's a little guide to who is what nation counterpart in the real Hetalia world, just in case you're confused or don't know human names well. I'll always post human names as a beginning note whenever many characters are introduced at once in a chapter:
> 
> Alfred = America  
> Arthur = England  
> Jon = Northern Ireland (custom)  
> Allistor = Scotland  
> Emyrs = Wales  
> Seamas = Ireland  
> Rosie = the mother (custom)
> 
> Anyways, enjoy reading!

**1 || The Kirkland Household**

_...back to the present._

“Hey, you twat. You’ve practically slept all day,” an irritated voice rang out from above him, making Alfred awaken. The first things he perceived were the distant sounds of people arguing and laughing in the kitchen, as spoons rattled against plates.

Alfred turned around in his bed with annoyance, trying his best to distance himself from the voice that had roused him from his sleep. He fumbled for his pillow with closed eyes, bringing the coolness of the backside of the pillow close to his chest. “Go away. I don’t wanna get up.”

He could hear the person next to the bed let out a long, exasperated sigh, and he could sense the annoyance practically oozing off of him without even seeing his face. He suddenly felt a knee jab him right in the arm, and Alfred made a hissing sound at the provoker.

“Okay, jeez, I’m up,” Alfred said between his teeth, opening his eyes to meet the cynical ones of Arthur Kirkland. “Man, why can’t you let me sleep?”

The sarcastic look in Arthur’s face turned to one of slight amusement. “I don’t know – maybe I’m trying to make you not become a fat-ass by sleeping all day. Perhaps you should be thanking me.”

“Go to hell.”

“Hey, not my fault that you go to those fast food places to eat all the time. Who else is going to look after you?” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone, as he adjusted the shirt he was wearing with his left hand. Alfred was trying _very_ hard at that moment not to punch the thick-eyebrowed male in front of him in the balls. Would’ve been nice to see his face if he did that, though.

Alfred threw the covers on Arthur in retaliation, and he heard the blond-haired male curse at him as Alfred lifted himself off of the bed and snickered at the boy in front of him struggling beneath the bed covers. Leaving him to untangle himself from the mess of the white blanket, the American made a turn around him and ran out of the bedroom to the kitchen to get a bite to eat. And then…

…wait, was something burning in the kitchen?

Eyes widening, Alfred ran down the carpeted hallways, running towards the smell. As soon as he entered, he realized that the burning smell was not sourced from a burning fire in a kitchen as he had suspected, but was actually coming from the dining table.

Sitting smack in the middle of the table was a pile of burnt-looking biscuits, with bits of black plaguing the once-fluffy brown bread. There was a terrible stench rising from the so-called “food”, and he involuntarily recoiled back from the smell.

Sitting around the table was the Kirkland family, who were all immersed deep in an argument of some sort – just like every morning, honestly. Sitting at the back-middle of the table was Rosie Kirkland, the mother of the household, and the only parent as a result of a divorced marriage. (Rosie had taken four children under her wing: Arthur, Allistor, Emyrs, and Jon, while her former husband had taken Seamas.) She had a defeated look plastered on her face as she watched three of her sons bickering in front of her, unable to get them to quiet down.

Alfred stared upon the scene with a deadpan look on his face, trying to absorb everything that was going on.

Allistor was smoking a cigar despite being underage by a year, which was a common occurrence by now that everyone was accustomed to. Rosie had been trying to get him to stop, but he was practically inseparable from that roll of tobacco. He only smoked it once in a while in the house, thankfully, because Alfred couldn’t stand the smell at all. He was currently in an argument with Rosie at the moment over the cigar he was smoking, and they both stood up from the table and broke out into explosive arguing.

Emyrs, at the far right, was probably the quietest of the Kirkland brothers, although he can get pretty dangerous when he does get irked. He’s practically a human time bomb – if you set him off, prepare to be screwed. He was fiddling with his fork, staring at the biscuits at the center of the table with a blank expression as if he couldn’t see it burning right before his eyes. However, when Allistor tossed a used cigar at Emyrs, he suddenly got up and began joining the argument as well. Great.

Jon was the youngest of the four Kirkland brothers, with fiery orange hair just like their long-lost brother Seamas. He became a bit solemn ever since Rosie’s divorce, most likely because he secretly missed Seamas, although he would never admit that fact out loud. Alfred thinks he’s probably one of the closest-to-sane brothers in the Kirkland family, but even Jon gets a bit riled up at times. He was currently eating an omelet casually, ignoring the chaos unfolding before him.

Alfred approached Jon first, and gave him a questioning look. “What happened this time?”

He sighed, his green eyes turning to face his blue ones. “The usual. Emyrs and Allistor got into a fight about who-knows-what, and now Mom’s late for work because of them. And then Allistor began smoking again a few minutes ago which ticked her off, and we’ve all been arguing for about an hour now, I think.” He distastefully looked at the table, where the burning biscuits continued to lie in the plate. “The only food we have is the food Arthur cooked,” he whispered to him with a shudder, and Alfred couldn’t help but smirk to himself.

“Hey, I heard that!” Arthur called, entering into the room with Alfred’s blanket still on him. “I bake the best biscuits in this household, so you better shut up and eat it, Jon.”

“I’d rather starve myself to death than eat your food,” Jon retorted in the same sarcastic tone, as he finished up the omelet he had made for himself. “I don’t even know how I live in this place anymore. One day I’m gonna wake up and find out Allistor set the house on fire or some crazy shit.”

“Well, that sounds like something Allistor would do, honestly,” Arthur admitted, as Allistor gave them both a death glare while wrestling his mother for the cigar packet.

Alfred let out a sigh to himself, deciding to skip breakfast for today so he wouldn’t get tangled up in another Kirkland argument. Even then, he smiled to himself as he sat down on the couch.

Ever since the Kirkland family had adopted him after the train incident, his life had been a lot different. After spending years of his time alone while his dad was on business trips, he had entered an atmosphere filled with a sense of excitement. Of course, it wasn’t necessarily a _good_ thing that the four Kirkland brothers were fighting all the time, but it did make him feel less lonely. There was always something new to draw from each day.

However, Alfred wasn’t entirely satisfied, all the same. As much as he did feel welcome in the Kirkland household, he still couldn’t muster the courage to call Rosie his mother. It sounded strange and foreign in his mouth, and as much as she cared for him as much as any caring mother would, he couldn’t get himself to regard her as “Mom”. He could only call her “Rosie” or “ma’am”, but no other words seemed to describe her.

She had told him when they first adopted Alfred that he could regard her as his mother from now on, but it was impossible for him to regard another person as his parent. Rosie was simply just a caring person and his new “brothers” seemed more like close friends. He just couldn’t get himself to do it, even after seven whole years of being a part of the family.

“Hey Alfred, what’s been on your mind lately?” a voice said, suddenly jerking him out of his thoughts. He almost screeched when he saw that Arthur had seemingly materialized next to him on the sofa. For a moment, worry seemed to flash through his lime eyes, which was a bit out of character for him, but he masked it just as quickly and glanced away.

Alfred hesitated for a moment, before sending Arthur his signature American™ smile. “It’s nothing, man. Just tired,” Alfred said dryly, before suddenly choking when the fresh smell of burnt biscuit filled his nostrils once again. _I thought the smell had faded by now…_

Arthur suddenly smirked, regarding him with a proud expression as he stood straight-up in front of him. “Alright, I just had to check if you were feeling well, because I just made a fresh batch of biscuits just for you. You better bloody eat them all.”

The thick-eyebrowed male looked so accomplished in his posture and expression that Alfred couldn’t even seem to insult him for his cooking. He only retched a bit at the smell, and covered his mouth with his hands to try to stop himself from throwing up.

Alfred managed to regain his normal facial expression after shoving down the nausea induced by the smell, before stammering in reply: “Y-yeah. I’ll totally eat ‘em all.” Then, as an after-thought, he added teasingly, “Thanks for the biscuits, Eyebrows.”

“Shut up. We all have thick eyebrows, so why do you only call me that?”

“You’ve got the thickest ones.”

“Fuck off.”

~ ~ _~_

_...many years earlier._

_The creek was bubbling with water as the river fed into it, making a soothing sound as it coursed above the smooth pebbles, with the water current caressing the fish swimming along the curving stream of water. Alfred smiled to himself as he picked up a small rock from near his feet and hurled it at the rushing water, causing a splash to erupt from it before dying down again._

_He always went to this river whenever he wanted to clear his mind, or to speak his heart out to the fish down below and the birds perched in the treetops. He had whispered his deepest secrets to the sky above the creek, and had cried there, too. It was his second home that he frequently sneaked off to after moving to the Kirkland home whenever he wanted some space._

_However, when he was about twelve years old, he decided to bring Arthur and Jon with him to the creek one day. That was also the day when they discovered something strange._

_At one corner of the creek, nearby the running flow of water, there were a bunch of rocks organized in an almost-circular pattern near the water's edge. It was obvious that someone else had organized them there purposefully, and there were even small inscribings etched into the stone, in some language they didn't know.  
_

_“What if a secret cult lives here?” Jon had brought up, interest sparking in his eyes, as he had poked at the rocks with a stick, as if the stones were too sacred to touch by hand._

_Arthur, of course, was skeptical. “Yeah, right. Or maybe a kid like you and me was just drawing shit on a rock. I don’t know where the hell you all get these ideas.”_

_“Oooh, you said ‘shit’. I’m telling Rosie,” Alfred had remarked, before receiving a karate chop on the head from Arthur._

_“You two need to stop making everything a big deal, though,” Arthur continued on, annoyance prominent in his tone as he walked over to the rocks. He kicked one of them as if to prove his point that he had no belief in the supposed “sacredness” of the circle of rocks, and the other two kids gaped at his action._

_“Oh, come on, grow up. I just kicked a bloody rock—“_

_Then, Arthur saw the hole that had been uncovered after he had kicked the rock aside. The rock lay aside from the hole, and when they carefully looked at the stone, they found a single unknown word etched onto it. The three then curiously peered into the hole, and saw a single piece of paper lying in there, crumpled carelessly among the dirt.  
_

_“W-what if it’s a treasure map?” Alfred said breathlessly, his hands practically tremoring from the excitement of it all, as Jon looked under the other rocks in the circle. It seemed that only the rock that Arthur had kicked had a hole underneath it._

_The blue-eyed boy was the first to jam his small arm into the hole and pull out the piece of paper, trying to be careful after he saw the edge of the paper practically crumble to pieces. Arthur just stood behind them, his eyes still skeptical of what their new discovery exactly was._

_When he pulled out the frail piece of paper, Jon immediately ran to his side and peered over his shoulder, and they read the letter, their hearts pounding with anticipation:_

_-_

I say hello again to the creek. This has always been a place of refuge for me. I’ve always found peace and privacy here.

I sincerely hope that we aren’t moving away to the city very soon, because I will dearly miss this place. I won’t have much of an opportunity to find a creek like this one, especially one where you don’t find that much people. We’re always moving to places full of people, and this has probably been the best place I’ve been in so far. There's still crowded areas, of course, but there's more space here than the cities I've lived in before. 

I have to write this here because it would be dangerous to leave this back at home. My journals had been discovered before by Mother, and that hadn’t ended well, to say the least. I know I have to be extra careful about where I write my thoughts down, so I will bury my writing near this creek from now on. I fear what would happen to me if I left my writing at home – I’d probably get hurt again.

My sisters are the only friends I have, and even then, they have become distant from me.

Tell me, what am I doing wrong? Why is everyone scared of me? It's just been so lonely, and I can't seem to find a single person to talk to.

I just want someone else by my side. Someone who is representative of the creek itself – calm, soothing, and a place where I can set myself free. Something like that, I don’t know. 

Anyways, I’ve said enough for today. I will try writing again tomorrow.

From ---------

-

_The name at the end of the letter had been smeared with mud. Alfred tried to clear the mud off the name, but realized that he couldn’t or the whole paper would probably crumble to pieces. They stared at it in confusion, not knowing what to get out of it._

_“Eh, it’s just some stupid kid’s diary entry,” Arthur said after a while of staring at it, obviously not bothering to read the whole thing. “How disappointing.”_

_Jon just shrugged in reply, but although he did seem dismayed at the fact that it wasn’t some sort of secret that they had uncovered, he looked a bit worried. “Do you think this person is okay? He said that he got hurt or something.” He turned to Alfred, who kept on rereading the letter in silence, becoming surprisingly quiet. “Hey Al, what do you think about it?”_

_His blue eyes were at first faraway and unresponsive, and then he suddenly snapped back to reality. “I need to find this person,” he suddenly declared, and the other two looked at him with obscure looks._

_“And how are you going to do that?” Jon said with a frown, while pointing at the mud over the name. “We don’t even know who this person is, and you probably couldn’t find him even if you trie—“_

_“I will find him.”_

_Arthur and Jon exchanged looks before looking back at the determined American, who looked like he was accepting some sort of extravagant quest for the sake of the country or something._

_“Why are you so interested in a bloody letter anyways?” Arthur asked as he distanced himself from them, eagerly wanting to go home. “This creek isn’t even that interesting. I don’t know what you find so special about it.”_

_Alfred folded the letter with great care after caressing it like it was a small child, before pocketing it in his jeans and smirking to himself. He didn’t respond, but his eyes seemed to say what words couldn’t: no matter what people said, nothing was going to stop him in his quest to find the writer of the letter. There was just something about it that drew him in, and he wanted to solve the mystery behind it all.  
_

_He gave up after a week of trying to match handwritings with people he knew, however, to a chorus of Jon and Arthur’s “I told you so”’s, but Alfred had saved the old letter in a small lockbox to keep it safe. It’s still somewhere in a closet in the Kirkland house to this day, but he had long forgotten about it._

_Little did he know that the letter had belonged to someone who would later be intertwined with his past and future._

~ ~ ~

“Hey, Alfred.”

“Hm?”

To get out of the commotion that was going on in the morning, him and Jon had stepped out of the house for some fresh air on the porch. They were mainly standing in silence. Jon’s orange hair was fiery in the sunlight, and Alfred almost couldn’t look at him directly.

“I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve been feeling kinda shitty lately.”

At this statement, Alfred’s eyebrows perked up in surprise. None of the Kirkland brothers were really the type to be upfront about their feelings like this, and no one would expect it from their fierce looks and sharp tongues. He at first scrambled for the right words to say, only to say, “Oh.” He felt like mentally slapping himself for the awkward response immediately afterwards.

He continued to stare at Jon’s expression momentarily. His green eyes stared into the distance, and his posture was a bit stiff. He also seemed to sense the awkwardness in the air, because he refused to make any eye contact at all.

Finally, Jon turned towards him, with his eyes looking glassy in the sunlight, and it took him a while to realize that his eyes were wet and threatening to spill over in tears. Alfred’s eyes widened, and he came up closer to him and took his stepbrother’s hands in his own. Finally, his words found surface: “Tell me what’s wrong, Jon. Don’t cry.”

He managed to hold his tears back, but he was still visibly shaking and had to sit down on one of the porch chairs for a second.

“I… I don’t know if I wanna explain it. It’s just bloody stupid, that’s what it is,” Jon said dismissively, retreating back into himself. “Arthur and Allistor both seem to hate his guts, and I don’t think Emyrs is happy about him, either.”

“Huh? Who are you talking about?” He shot him a puzzled look, but the green-eyed male just smiled bitterly, his face suddenly filled with regret.

After a while of him just standing there and profusely refusing to say anything about what was wrong despite Alfred’s endeavors, he finally hinted at it with some context: “You probably weren’t as affected by it because you were still new to the family. You know… the divorce between Mom and Dad.”

Alfred looked at him with worry as he sighted tears welling up in his eyes again. “Yeah, I remember that. I was only nine anyways so I didn’t really understand it that well, and I’d been in the family only for a month. Kinda came outta nowhere, and I don’t remember your dad much.”

“It’s been eating at the back of my mind all the time. And it’s not just the divorce itself, but I just –” He grimaced, suddenly finding his words hard to choke out to Alfred. “I miss Seamas. There, I said it.”

The boy with the cowlick continued to stare at him momentarily, before his face cracked into a smirk, much to Jon’s chagrin.

“H-hey, what are you smiling about?”

The American then burst into a soft laugh, before putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s so obvious that you miss him, man. Anyone could tell from a mile away. It’s just the first time you actually confessed that you missed him.”

His face significantly turned red, which complimented well with his fiery orange hair that almost was red in the golden sunlight. “W-was it that obvious? I swear, I’ve called him an asshole so many times… the fuck?”

“You’re not that good at hiding things, Jon,” Alfred said matter-of-factly, as he twiddled his hands in his pockets. He then said in a humorous tone, “Man, you Kirklands are all the same. So predictable.”

Jon looked precisely like he wanted to bury himself in a hole at that moment in time, as he looked away as stiffly as possible. Alfred thought that he was about to burst out with a nasty retort, but his gaze abruptly softened and the tears finally dribbled down his face. Alfred tried to hug him, but he kept pushing Alfred away, continuing to wipe the moisture falling from his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“A-alright. I’m done here, so whatever. You can scram now.”

“Wh—but you barely even said anything about it. It’s better to let things out, you know. I’m here for you.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“But… I’m not leaving your side until you feel better, Jon,” Alfred asserted, as he stayed in the same position.

“You can’t help me,” he said, his eyes growing abnormally cold and distant as he retreated within himself. “There really isn’t anything we can do about it at this point.”

“Jon, please—”

“Stop forcing me, Al,” he suddenly said with hostility laced in his voice, and Alfred backed up, his ears burning with shame. He could only watch in silence as his orange-haired stepbrother swiftly stepped inside, leaving him alone with his thoughts on the porch.

The sun rose higher in the sky, signifying the start of noon. Alfred approached the edge of the porch, squinting as the sunlight attacked his field of vision, and he looked around at his surroundings. The nearby field close to the house was visible through the few trees at his right, where a few boys were running around with cricket bats, shrieking and laughing.

At his left was a distant stream of water running down a hill, littered with soda cans. He remembered when he used to follow the river all the way to where the creek grew wide and where there were relatively few people. He smiled to himself at the sight. It had been many years since he had gone there.

"Hey, Mom wants us inside, brat," a hostile voice said, clearly belonging to Allistor. He groaned inwardly as Alfred turned around to face his gaze, which looked back at him with burning irritance. _God_ , no Kirkland pissed him off more than him.

"Alright, alright. I'll be there in a sec," Alfred said, waving at the red-haired male as a gesture to leave him alone. Allistor stubbornly stayed there momentarily, before grumbling to himself and leaving from the threshold of the door.

He stood there for another ten minutes, until he finally decided to come in, walking away from the edge of the porch. He stole one last glance at the river up the hill, before smiling to himself and closing the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post the second chapter close to the first one since I already had both of them ready, and I was hyped to post this, to be honest.
> 
> I have AP tests next week, so I might have to post the 3rd chapter next weekend, since I'll be really busy with studying. I do have a good amount of it planned out, however. :( I hope I update this on time.
> 
> Take care everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading my very first published RusAme fanfiction. I am still unsure of where I'll go with this, so please leave suggestions and constructive criticism below, because I do want to make this story the best it can be for future chapters. Thank you so much for reading. <3


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